Lego Pirates of the Caribbean Xbox 360 User Review

7.0

Developer Traveller's Tales just keeps the Lego fun coming. The maker of such favorites as Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter and Lego Batman, the developer keeps finding new Hollywood franchises in which to insert a little Lego magic. If you've played any of the previous games in the Lego series, you will know exactly what you are getting with Lego Pirates of the Caribbean. You're getting a fun game that you can mindlessly button mash away on as you work to unlock new hilarious scenes featuring your favorite movie characters portrayed as Lego figures. It's a great way to spend a night with your friends and family. With that said, the Lego video game franchise has been out for a number of years now and with each new release, the weak combat, poor camera and other features start to annoy you just a little bit more. Overall though, this game offers more Lego magic for all.

The game works through the plot of all four Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and all of your heroes and villains are there. Once again there is no spoken dialogue, you are left watching cutscenes that can be quite hilarious as you watch the Lego counterpart of your favorite movie character like Jack Sparrow go to battle in Lego form. The gameplay is the same as always. Mash a couple buttons, smash enemies, smash everything in sight. Two players can play at once for some co op fun. You'll fight through levels with different objectives and some levels have no fighting at all which is a welcome change of pace from all of the button mashing. You'll work to unlock new costumes and other collectibles just like in other versions of the Lego franchise. All in all, it's more of the same for fans of this franchise and for most people, that's a good thing.

Still, it should be said that the same problems that have always hurt this franchise still remain to this day. When you are doing a bit of platforming, the imprecise controls can get you killed. The camera, as always, is a mess and doesn't always offer the best view of what is coming after you. One feature, or a lack of a feature really, that we really have to question is the lack of online play. We've been playing co op Lego games for years. Why can't we connect online and play with people all over the world? Games with significantly smaller budgets than the successful Lego series manage to incorporate online play. This is really something there's no good excuse for.

Lego: Pirates of the Caribbean is exactly the game a long time fan of the series wants it to be. It's Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones in Lego form. It's hilarious Lego inspired cut scenes. It's button mashing to collect items to unlock hidden features. But in this day and age, the game's weak camera, sometimes poor control and lack of online play are really starting to hurt the game's overall quality.

8.1

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean allows players to take control of Captain Jack Sparrow, in Lego form. You can relive the adventures of Captain Jack through all four of the Disney movies, as you complete each level in story mode. As you progress through the game, you will be able to unlock over seventy other playable characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Each of the four movies is broken down into five levels for you to play through. For instance, you start out in story mode playing through the movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl. You visit popular locations from the movie in the game, including Port Royal, Tortuga, The Black Pearl, Smuggler's Den and the Isla De Muerta. After you complete this movie, you can play through the movies Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and On Stranger Tides. After you complete the first level in story mode, you are free to play through the movies in any order you desire.

As you play through story mode, you work on collecting Lego studs to earn true pirate status, mini-kit bottles, and compass items. For achieving these goals within a level, you can earn gold bricks. After completing a level in story mode, you can replay the level in free play mode, to finish collecting items, with other characters, you missed on your first play through of the level, in story mode.

In between levels, you can take a break and visit the main port hub. This area allows you to explore freely and wander around in order to collect Lego studs, gold bricks, red hats, and purchase characters, as they are unlocked. There are several different areas to the main port hub to explore. The dock is the central area in the port hub, consisting for four docks, each representing one of the movies. When you are ready to resume playing through the levels, you use one of the treasure maps, at the end of each dock.

Gold bricks are used to unlock bonus levels and bonus areas within the game. Gold bricks are earned for fully completing each level of the game, as well as found in the several areas around the main port hub. Red hats have to be purchased using your Lego studs, and unlock special abilities, you can use throughout the game. For example, there is one red hat which doubles the value of Lego studs, once you purchase and activate the hat. All of the red hats in Lego Pirates can be found in the several areas around the main port hub.

The numerous characters in Lego Pirates are unlocked as you play through the levels in story mode. Some characters you obtain for free, just for completing the level. Other characters you must purchase, using your Lego studs. As you play through Lego Pirates, you can also unlock and earn Trophies, for meeting certain conditions.